QA For Web Sites

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QA For Web Sites
Ed Bremner ILRT University of Bristol Ed.Bremner_at_b
ris.ac.uk
Marieke Guy UKOLN University of
Bath M.Guy_at_ukoln.ac.uk

• Aims Of Todays Talk
• To discuss the approaches taken to QA by projects
  
• To summarise findings of surveys of project Web
  sites
• To make recommendations for future QA work

Brian Kelly UKOLN University of
Bath B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk
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Contents

• Introduction
• QA For Digitisation
• QA For Web Sites
• Conclusions

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Introduction

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Approach Taken

• Possible approaches to ensuring compliance with
  standards and best practices
• Strict auditing, with penalties for no-compliance
• Developmental, explaining reasons for compliance,
  documenting examples of best practices and
  providing advice on implementation and monitoring
• The second approach is being taken

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QA For Web Sites

• The issues
• The Web is the main delivery mechanism for
  projects and services
• There is an increasing awareness of the
  importance of
• Accessibility
• Use of new devices (PDAs, WAP, e-books, )
• Repurposing of Web content (e.g. archiving)
• Technologies such as XSLT will support
  repurposing of valid XML resources
• But
• Invalid HTML is the norm
• Many authoring tools produce poor HTML
• Authors arent aware of the problems

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Guidelines

• We often say
• Open standards are important
• HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, are important
• but fail to explain why and how
• JISCs QA Focus is addressing such concerns by
• Documenting example of best practices in which
  projects can share their implementation successes
  (and difficulties they experienced)
• Provide brief advice in specific aspects of the
  standards and best practices
• Surveying its communities to highlight best
  practices and areas in which improvements can be
  made
• Demonstrating use of testing tools and procedures

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Standards Best Practices

• Standards For Web
• Use compliant HTML / XHTML
• Use CSS
• Support WAI accessibility guidelines
• Best Practices For Web
• Ensure Web resources can are suitable for reuse
  and repurposing
• Where proprietary formats need to be used, flag
  them and use in most open way

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Surveying The Community

• Surveys of project Web sites have been carried
  out in order to
• Obtain a profile for the community
• Identify examples of best practices
• Identify areas in which further advice is needed
• Surveys included
• HTML CSS compliance ? Accessibility
• 404 error pages ? HTTP headers
• Repurposing resources

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Survey Philosophy

• The surveys made use of freely-available
  Web-based tools
• Methodology is open
• No software needs to be installed locally (apart
  from Web browser)
• Findings can be reproduced
• Latest results can be obtained by clicking on
  link to testing service
• The surveys typically examined project entry
  points and not entire Web site as
• This page has the highest profile
• The aim is to validate a methodology which can be
  deployed by projects themselves, not to test
  every page on behalf of the projects

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Survey Findings

• Initial set of findings available from
  lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/surveys/web-10-2
  002/gt

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Providing Motivation

• We have found evidence of failure to comply with
  HTML standards
• There is a need to explain why compliance is
  important (and avoid the its OK in my browser
  argument) and to provide motivation for projects
  to update their tools, authoring procedures, etc.
• A further set of surveys look at repurposing of
  the project Web sites
• Availability of Web sites in the Internet Archive
• Ease of making Web sites available on a PDA
• Transformation of embedded metadata

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Repurposing Resources

• We examined the Web sites to see if they were
  available in the Internet Archive and could be
  transformed into a format for viewing on a PDA

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Transforming Resources

• Project entry points were processed by several
  online transformation services in order to
  validate and visualise embedded Dublin Core
  metadata

HTMLresource
Original page, containing embedded DC metadata
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Providing Advice

• We have
• Survey project Web sites and identified areas of
  lack of compliance with standards and best
  practices
• Demonstrated examples of the potential importance
  of compliance for repurposing resources
• In addition we need to provide
• Brief focussed advice on the standards
• Information on how to monitor compliance
• Case studies on solutions deployed by projects
  themselves
• Guidance on dealing with implementation
  difficulties and what to do when strict
  compliance is difficult to achieve

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Documentation Advice

• Advisory briefing documents are being produced
• These are
• Brief, focussed documents
• Informed by findings of the surveys

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Documentation Case Studies

• Case Studies are being commissioned
• These are
• Written by projects themselves
• Describe the solution adopted to a particular
  problem
• Include details of lessons learnt not just a
  press release!

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Next Steps

• Extended Coverage
• We will be moving on from Web and digitisation to
  include other areas including
• Metadata ? Multimedia
• Software development ? Deployment into service
• Moving On From Automated Testing
• The initial work made use of automated testing
  tools
• Can be used remotely ? Objective
• Applicable across all projects
• We have started work on QA procedures in areas
  which are not suitable for automated checking

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Limitations

• There are a number of limitations to the work we
  have carried out so far
• Project Web sites have different purposes
  (information about the project communications
  with project partners project deliverables
  themselves etc.)
• Projects have different levels of funding,
  resources, expertise, etc.
• Projects are at different stages of development
  (and some have finished)
• The surveys are intended to demonstrate a
  methodology which projects can use for themselves

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Self Assessment Toolkit

• Further Deliverables
• We will be developing a self-assessment toolkit
  for projects to use, by individual projects or
  across project clusters
• The toolkit will consist of
• Examples of QA procedures
• Documented examples of use of testing tools
• Self-assessment questionnaires
• Advice on standards and best practices
• Case studies
• FAQs

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Questions

• Any questions?

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